unset() function not unsetting array elements

Chronoslayer

Hi all. I'm am having difficulty with removing elements of a string with the unset() function. I run unset() on certain elements of the string, and then attempt to echo the element to make sure its gone. But no element that I run unset() on ever gets unset, and it shows up in the second echo statement. This happens four times, as there are four backslashes before the first element containing a newline character is encountered.


$file = "xmlholder.tmp";
$data = implode("",file($file));
for($i = 0; $data[$i] != "\n"; $i++) {
        if($data[$i] == "\\\") {
           echo "<br>HI. Now unsetting the character \"$data[$i]\".<br>";                  

           unset($data[$i]);
           echo "<br>The character now addressed by \$data[\$i] is: $data[$i]<br>";
        }  

}

Does anyone have any idea why unset() doesn't work in this instance? Thanks for your time everyone :-).

jim_keller

if you're trying to read lines from a file, eliminating backslashes as you go, there is an easier way. Try:

$fd = fopen ("xmlholder.tmp", "r");
$max_line_length = 4096;

while ( !feof ($fd) ) {

$cur_line = fgets( $fd, $max_line_length );
echo "current line is: $cur_line"
$cur_line = str_replace("\\", "", $cur_line ); 
echo "current line without backslashes: $cur_line";

}

fclose ($fd);

also, instead of unset, you can just do $data[$i] = "";

-Jim Keller
http://www.centerfuse.net